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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Finished Granny's Hankie!

I am so pleased to have finished the Granny's Hankie Quilt! The quilt came out to 98" square with the quilting. Can you hear my son behind the quilt complaining - "Stop making such big quilts Mom!" - my husband and son are standing on stools with their arms up - the quilt is floor to ceiling.
This was a 2011 block-of-the-month from Denise Russart at Just Quilting. Thank-you so much the wonderful pattern Denise!

My sister was kind enough to let me take a picture of the quilt on her queen size bed (because I don't have a bed big enough - yes, another quilt for the closet, or as my brother says - to cover the lawn tractor).

Now for some details on the quilting -

I quilted in the ditch around all the blocks and all appliqué pieces, and then did "McTavishing" in the block backgrounds. I "pebbled" the centre circles of the blocks (because I thought they were too puffy).

I free motion quilted the sashing with perpendicular lines, and the yellow inner border is quilted using the walking foot. I thought that the straight lines contrasted with the curves of the other quilting. I kept the circles in the thin black border plain because they complimented the appliqué pieces.

I quilted a meandering feather in the black "connected garages" and McTavished the red background.

The outer border (the yellow/red/yellow one) was quilted with a design from the amazingly talented Judi at Green Fairy Quilts - she kindly gave me permission to copy one of her designs (mine is no where near as nice as the original seen here, but I am so pleased with how it turned out. There is so much stitching in this border - each side used 2 bobbins of thread!).
Borders are a great place to try harder quilting designs if you quilt on a domestic sewing machine - it is just easier to quilt borders.

The corner nine-pathces have feathered wreathes because that is one of my favourite designs (and I try to add them where ever I can!).

This is some of the thread that I used. The black is a 60Wt thread from Tre Stelle - there was 2000 meters on that spool, and the red almost empty spool is Genziana 50Wt thread (also Tre Stelle) - only 1300 meters on that spool (I had to start using Aurifil in the bobbin because I knew that I wouldn't have enough red thread). I used different colours of Aurifil 50Wt thread for around the appliqué pieces. I found the Tre Stelle thread a bit lintier than Aurifil (the thread I normally use for quilting), but I really liked quilting with the 60Wt thread.

The batting is wool (Hobbs Tuscany). The quilt started out 102" and is now 98" square. I used a white Clover pen and a Clover Hera marker for marking the quilting lines. It is quilted on my domestic sewing machine.

Dear Joanne,congratulations. Your quilt is very beautiful and the quilting amazing. I still just have finished the nine blocks :-((( But once upon a time I also will complete this quilt, but never, never I will quilt as beautiful as you.Many greetings from germany.sigisart

gorgeous!!How great that you quilted it yourself too! Thanks for sharing your materials and process.Beautiful photos - yes, my guys complain about holding too, lol.It was a treat to see it on a bed.Congratulations on a beautiful new finish!!xx

Beautiful quilt,in colours and quilting. How do you quilt such a big quilt on your domestic sewing machine especially with so much detailed quilting? Love your work.Thank you for sharing and inspiring us all.

Alright Joanne, your granny hankie quilt is absolutely gorgeous. If you are just planning to store it in a closet, I'm sure I can find a queen size bed to display it on at my house. All that quilting really compliments the applique and borders. It is fantastic! How many hours it did take to quilt it?

Carrying on the Tradition

The old quilts on the right side of my blog header photo are ones made by a couple of great-grandmothers, a grandmother and an aunt, plus some of their photos and some of their quilting supplies. The quilt in the background and the ones on the left are mine.